Jean Paul Gaultier x Les Marins 2021

[velvetandsilk]

Price and lookbook:
Jean Paul Gaultier - Les Marins - also photo source

 

[dior_couture1245]

No.

It’s not good. All pretty cheap looking. Very strange casting. Not working for me. It’s no surprise that all the these trendy people who are involved in this are gleaning very superficial design ideas from Gaultier…no real understanding of the depth and mastery of his work.

 

[Lola701]

I tried to buy the classic Marinière but it was already sold out.
I like the concept and the collection.
Gaultier’s work, much like his protégé, Margiela has been copied, appropriated si much recently that it’s only fair for him to cash on it with those collections.

It’s a very now approach to fashion and a different take on nostalgia...It will be interesting to see this develop. The problem with Gaultier is that he has done (tattoos, punk, play on gender, morphing of fabrics, corsets...etc) is kinda obvious and overdone but I like that finally Gaultier resonates with younger people again.

I feel like my generation missed on Gaultier and the fun attached to it.
Gaultier in the 2000’s was already more bourgeois, all about the Couture, the classicism of Hermès...It had some glorious moments but maybe it wasn’t as connected to the youth and the spirit of irreverence.’

The Couture collection with Sacai will have more substance and this is a great balance. Nicolas’s Beaubourg-Gaultier collection was very much edgy, this is a lot more accessible and it makes sense.

 

[jeanclaude]

It feels like "Gaultier for H&M"...but the sad part here is that H&M is not involved at all; but it still looks like cheap fast-fashion.

 

[THD96]

I don't hate it but it's just feel on the surface. It's like Gaultier introduction 101. It's may work for IG generation but I don't think this will connect with his core audience.

Maybe JPG need to choose designers with stronger direction. Imagine Phoebe for Gaultier or Marc even CWK could do with the JPG archive.

 

[JohannesL]

The whole project is very insta-fashion oriented, but I am kind of liking the black/white male speedo/bikini, LOL

 

[Lola701]

I don't hate it but it's just feel on the surface. It's like Gaultier introduction 101. It's may work for IG generation but I don't think this will connect with his core audience.

Maybe JPG need to choose designers with stronger direction. Imagine Phoebe for Gaultier or Marc even CWK could do with the JPG archive.

What’s Gaultier’s core audience in 2021? We literally saw how the brand gradually disappeared in a decade. I remember that Gaultier was one of those designers like Sonia Rykiel who had boutiques in several major cities in France. It all shut down and the same for his distribution around the world...

His core audience is either buying the Couture (those are probably the women who bought his RTW and Hermès stuff) and the rest is buying perfumes.

I think it’s great because it replace Gaultier in a contemporary market. Suddenly the people buying the perfumes can buy the clothes...AND the said core audience will buy the Couture.

And from what I saw, in the RTW, there’s an Atelier collection and the Vintage collection. I just find the whole thing super clever. It’s good to see that in the whole spectrum of contemporary to more HF, all the stuff is sold out.

The collaboration itself or turning the house into a designer Hub is a strong direction. I’m sold tbh.
They can have those High Profile designers for Couture anyway...

 

[dior_couture1245]

I feel like my generation missed on Gaultier and the fun attached to it.
Gaultier in the 2000’s was already more bourgeois, all about the Couture, the classicism of Hermès...It had some glorious moments but maybe it wasn’t as connected to the youth and the spirit of irreverence.’

Perhaps unsurprisingly, that bourgeois period of his career is my favorite. It’s as if his career was broken into three acts - the Enfant Terrible era, the Bourgeois Couture era, and then the Camp era. I totally understand the love and the importance of his Enfant Terrible period, but the Bourgeois period, for me, is a true and definitive showcase of the pure mastery of making clothes…and then, of course, the Camp period was kind of a strange decade where the taste level seemed to just…disappear?

Anyway, I digress.

In a way, though, this whole reboot thing is doomed for me (aesthetically at least) since I’m not sure there’s any way I could be impressed by what these “cool kids” could come up with. Unlike the youth of Gaultier’s generation, kids now are pretty much next to useless, with not a single original thought in their minds. This is true almost without exception.

It’s like the meme goes…all they know how to do is “charge they phones, eat hot chip and lie.”

Running a legendary Couture house is a little above the skill set of your average millennial.

 

[Lola701]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, that bourgeois period of his career is my favorite. It’s as if his career was broken into three acts - the Enfant Terrible era, the Bourgeois Couture era, and then the Camp era. I totally understand the love and the importance of his Enfant Terrible period, but the Bourgeois period, for me, is a true and definitive showcase of the pure mastery of making clothes…and then, of course, the Camp period was kind of a strange decade where the taste level seemed to just…disappear?

Anyway, I digress.

In a way, though, this whole reboot thing is doomed for me (aesthetically at least) since I’m not sure there’s any way I could be impressed by what these “cool kids” could come up with. Unlike the youth of Gaultier’s generation, kids now are pretty much next to useless, with not a single original thought in their minds. This is true almost without exception.

It’s like the meme goes…all they know how to do is “charge they phones, eat hot chip and lie.”

Running a legendary Couture house is a little above the skill set of your average millennial.

I’m also a fan of his bourgeois days. I love his enfants terrible days too...But the reality is that much like the people born in the mid 80’s I didn’t experienced that time when he was just a cool, irreverent kid of the fashion industry. He introduced me to Hermès and while I have some pieces I can’t say that enjoyed Gaultier at his creative peak. After maybe 2010, he indulged in being a kind of caricature...Something he was able to do because he was already part of the establishment...

What I love about this is how specific it is. I love that he doesn’t give the keys to his brand to someone in particular. It’s specific talents for a specific theme of Gaultier’s repertoire.
We saw with Marine Serre and others the desire for Vintage Gaultier. The name Gaultier resonates with a new generation and as many members and I said already, all the subjects that resonates with millennials today are part of the brand DNA.

Obviously here in TFS, we are in this kind of famine of fashion so when we hear the return of Gaultier, we might be tempted to expect some kind of fireworks when in fact the house resonates today thanks to it glorious past. This is just a honest RTW proposition. Marinière, Jeans, Sweaters, catsuits are also part of his DNA and this is a great introduction. Gaultier is a man who did collaborations with La Perla, Pataugas, Levi’s and stuff so he does know about those stuff.

For me Gaultier is doing kind of what Mugler should have done. We see how Mugler is struggling in a way to handle the extensive heritage of the brand.

 

[Phuel]

It feels like "Gaultier for H&M"...but the sad part here is that H&M is not involved at all; but it still looks like cheap fast-fashion.

You’re being way too kind. Even his Target/Supreme collab offered more depth and effort. This reeks of the least effort to optimize the most profit: It’s so coldly and cynically corporate and creatively-bankrupt. I thought it was an underwear line because it looks to rip off CK Underwear. It’s exactly like what’s all is left of Gaultier on eBay. All they have are the tackiest, cheapest and gaudiest eurotrash of Gaultier: The printed denim, the tattoo-prints, and the various sheer tees… If that’s all I knew of his designs, I’d be LMAO at his iconic status. This is that eBay clearance mess— on his official site.

If he’s desperately seeking streetwear relevance, he must have forgotten he was the OG master of streetwear-meets-couture— complete with the cheekiness, the irony and the subversion. A collection like S/S 1993 was so brilliantly street ingenuity and still masterfully couture-y; innovative and classic; and visionary and still campy. He had it all once. This? It's pathetic, frankly.

 

[perhydrol]

I feel like some of you have expectations that would never be fulfilled by Gaultier and don't really understand the whole concept of different chapters designed by different designers.

Personally speaking, I really like this collection and I get the whole concept of designers collaborating with the house of Gaultier. I think all the pieces will be sold out sooner or later (especially the vintage ones) because there's this new thirst for JPG's pieces and actually his aesthetic is visual in a way that translates very well for the reality of Instagram. Also, the choice of designers here feels kind of personal since Jean Paul actually supports those people. This direction feels really modern in a way because we can get different points of view and at the same time everything is based on the visual language of JPG.

That being said, to me the presentation is the weakest link. The clip by Charlotte Wales doesn't create any fantasy and feels kind of irrelevant. Same with the lookbook, all we got is the one prepared for e-commerce. Such a shame, because JPG is a showman and he could do wonders with this.

 

[Phuel]

^^^ LOL Every single piece being offered is a pared down, stripped down version of its superior original (and not even getting it not he horrendous styling that looks like avatars from Cyberpunk...) and without a whiff of distinction from one contributing designer to the next it may as well be designed by a marketing committee. It’s so synthesized, homogenized and processed to be as basic as possible that it just as well be underwear.

This is Gaultier dumbed-down for the kidz— just like every single other brand that’s hugely dumbed down to outlet-store aesthetic to optimize profits and SM-relevance. No one is expecting the elaborate, complex and multi-layered construction and tailoring of his best designs for this sort of thing to hype a dusty brand. Just that streetwear was a huge design identity of his brand, and these collaborators could have at least been given some creative freedom to revision those pieces in their own style for 2021. Instead they gave us basic underwear.

 

[RosesAreRed]

Curious who is investor as obviously there are money put into this relaunch. Looks quite good. Always loved JPG and he is a constant inspiration for so many designers now. The archival JPG items are probably the hottest vintage items on the market, so this should work.

 

[Lola701]

Curious who is investor as obviously there are money put into this relaunch. Looks quite good. Always loved JPG and he is a constant inspiration for so many designers now. The archival JPG items are probably the hottest vintage items on the market, so this should work.

Puig is the majority shareholder of the brand with JPG himself...

 

[donyan]

I had to stop looking once I arrived at 'Le bandana queer'. The cheap marketing is an insult to his legacy. He should be outraged.